Archive

BY MARK ROWE
RUSSIA and vodka are inseparable bedfellows but is there room for a ménage-a-trois? Its domestic market for beer is booming, while abroad both Russian immigrant communities and western European and north American drinkers are enjoying the novelty factor of a quality brew from the traditional home of vodka.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SOME four years after they began, negotiations for a deal over a geographical indication register for traditionally made wines and spirits are entering a decisive phase at the World Trade Organisation. The talks have taken so long because there is a fundamental difference in approach between new world producers led by the US who want such a register to amount to no more than a kind of voluntary data-base and the Europeans who see it as a means of ensuring world-wide legal protection for traditional appellations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
POLITICAL pressure is rising on negotiators at the WTO tasked with striking a deal over a geographical indication register for traditionally made wines and spirits. WTO members have long debated the issue and have not bridged the gap between countries such as the USA, which want a powerless register for guidance on protected terms and the EU and its allies, which want registration to grant compulsory worldwide protection.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers (EU) has removed natural mineral waters and spring waters from the scope of the EU’s geographical indication legislation, that provides protection to names marketing traditionally made drinks from defined regions in Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PROGRESS has been made in negotiations between the European Union and Canada over a wide-ranging wine and spirits industry deal, according to EU agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler. He told a meeting of the EU Council of Ministers for agriculture and fisheries that a draft agreement was ready for approval.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
FRANCE, Italy, Spain and Portugal are blocking a move by the European Commission to allow the import into the EU of Australian wine flavoured by the addition of oak chips. This is a faster and cheaper process than the traditional method of ageing wine in oak barrels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s funding institutions are increasingly financially assisting the former USSR’s oil industry. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is lending US$80 million loan to a key subsidiary of Russia’s Lukoil group – CSJC Lukoil-Perm – to help it cut gas flaring to 20 per cent by 2005, compared with 52 per cent at typical Russian oilfields.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Labour Organisation (ILO) has warned the globalisation of utility sectors is cutting jobs in gas distribution, with only the roll-out of new services in developing countries generating employment. ILO’s ‘Challenges and Opportunities Facing Public Utilities’ calls for more public consultation when preparing major changes, such as privatisation and liberalisation.*…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AGREEMENT in principle over the proposed reforms to the European Union’s gas liberalisation directives has been secured at the European Parliament’s key industry committee, although it is proposing important changes. MEP’s called for amendments insisting upon close cooperation between the European Commission and national regulators regarding security of supply.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
El Paso Corporation, of Houston, lost US$1.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2002 and US$1.47 billion for all 2002 because of the company’s settlement of allegations it manipulated the gas market during a California energy crisis.…